


"How Do I Look?"

by Lily_Star



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Barry panics, F/M, Lydia does a whole lot of lying, Maybe one day I'll post the second half, Taako tries to help but only makes things worse, This was going to have a happy ended but I cut that part out for angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 10:29:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16721616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lily_Star/pseuds/Lily_Star
Summary: Lydia decides to mess with Barry's mind





	"How Do I Look?"

It’s after Cameron had valiantly given what remained of his life to the Tres Horny Boys by getting Barry to conjure a healing game. Lydia charges up a fiery spell and starts blasting at Barry, catching him off guard and taking away a good chunk of health.

Panicking because of the sudden unwanted attention on him, Barry begins blasting magic missiles right back at her but she is more prepared for it, being able to dodge by a majority of hits yet still taking a small amount of damage.

“You’re quite a determined man, Mr.Bluejeans, or perhaps it’s pronounced Hallwinter?” Lydia muses.

“I would prefer it if you got out of my head,” Barry growls in his fake lich voice.

Lydia pauses, concentrating on Barry’s memories before smiling devilishly with delight.

“Oh, come on now, Barold, no need to be harsh with me, what would Lup say?“ Lydia tilts her head with faux-innocence and with a woeful expression.

“Leave her out of this, this is between you and me right now,” Barry says immediately, this time with his normal voice.

“Now where’s the fun in that?” Lydia chuckles.

With that Lydia twirls her finger around, causing Barry to hear familiar footsteps.

After 100 years Barry easily latched onto who’s footsteps were who’s. Magnus’s being heavy and careless, Lucretia’s quiet almost ballet-like steps, and so on. Despite being familiar to Taako’s Barry could recognize Lup’s from behind.

Turning around quickly Barry sees the expected disappointment of it not being her, but in fact, it is a mannequin. Lydia’s skills having modified it’s walking steps to match the ones etched into Barry’s mind like a lost drum beat. The mannequin walks right past Barry like he isn’t there and stops in front of Lydia like an obedient dog.

“Let’s see…” Lydia says, looking over her new canvas.

“What the hell are you planning?” Barry asks, anger in his voice as he charges necrotic energy into his palms.

“Nothing that’ll hurt you physically right away, deary,” Lydia says nonchalantly, using Wonderland’s suffering smoke to put elven ears on the mannequin.

“She looks an awful lot like your elven friend, Taako, huh?” Lydia says, creating a wig from smoke styled exactly like Lup’s tied-back hair, “I wonder if he would even be able to see the similarities if he ever got to meet her again.”

Barry isn’t going to sit back and helplessly watch, he fires off an electric bolt he had been charging up and fires it wordlessly at Lydia. However, a mannequin comes running out from the smoke and absorbs the shock damage, leaving Lydia unharmed.

“You should know better than to interrupt an artist’s work,” Lydia grins, “Lucy used to get so mad at you when you tried to ask her about her paintings, she always insisted that you stay patient, Barold.”

“Don’t call me that!” Barry shouts at her.

“Why of course, I guess that nickname is only for your close friends, but I know everything there is to know about you so I’d say we’re pretty darn close, no?” Lydia throws a bright, crimson robe conjured from smoke over the mannequin’s shoulders.

Barry shoots magic missiles at her, but each is blocked off by a summoned mannequin.

“Almost done, dearie!”

Lydia spins the mannequin around, like a big reveal. It’s still faceless and as bland as any of the other mannequins seen in the audience with the exception of Lup’s outfit and some physical features. Lydia then summons a long, black fabric, similar to that of the umbrastaff.

“Watch this,” Lydia says, almost like a demand, as she smiles joyfully.

Lydia holds the curtain in front both her and the mannequin. She then proceeds to drop the curtain, revealing only Lup. There was no mannequin dressed as Lup and Lydia was nowhere to be seen. Instead, it was Lup. Looking exactly like how Barry remembered her. 

Despite how much Barry wanted it to be her, how much he desperately wanted to see her again, Barry knew this wasn’t the woman he loved.

The figure’s eyes were the first thing off about them. Instead of Lup’s hazel eyes that Barry had gotten lost in so many times before they were red with joy, even slightly glowing. Barry could see Lydia’s outline for a split-second, holding her hands on Lup’s shoulders gently like a parent.

“How do I look?” Lydia-Lup asks, giving a twirl like she was showing off a new outfit. Except the outfit isn’t new, she was wearing her standard IPRE uniform that no matter what had always seemed softer than Barry’s robe did.

“This isn’t real,” Barry says, hoping to send the illusion away. But Lup is still standing there.

“Babe, do you want to know what happened to me, the love of your life?” Lydia-Lup smiles, the voice is an exact replica, from tone to pitch to use of vocab.

“You’re not her,” Barry shouts, still trying to shake the illusion away. But it isn’t an Illusion.

“I wasn’t only trying to hide the gauntlet, babe, I wanted to hide the whole cabinet of artifacts,” Lydia-Lup sighs, “and unfortunately for me, yours was always right here in Wonderland, or that’s what the billboards had told me anyways.”

Lydia-Lup is walking closer and closer, causing Barry’s adrenaline to spike up. Except there is no adrenaline, he doesn’t have a body, it’s his lich form losing composure. Glitching and letting off bolts of electricity, Barry tries to slowly back away. Was it true? Did Lup really end up trapped in this hellhole?

“You won’t believe what I had gone through, babe! I had to lose an eye,” Lydia-Lup’s body changes to show an eyepatch over her left eye with a flaming heart designed on it.

“I lost a good number of skills too, not to mention my favourite scorching ray. Gosh, remember how I used to use that spell every chance I got?” Lup says wistfully, looking over her hands with regret.

“Wanna know what the worst thing I sacrificed was though?” She says as she looks up from her hands to make eye-contact with Barry, her one visible eye now back to that recognizable hazel colour Barry adored.

Barry’s still glitching and sending off bolts of electricity, even accidentally landing a bolt on who he thinks might actually be Lup. He thought she was in that damned umbrella, he never thought she spent her last days suffering in Wonderland.

“What?”

“I threw away my love for you, babe.”

Barry finally stops moving backwards now.

“Bullshit.”

Lydia-Lup is still proudly walking closer.

“It’s true, Barold, I had no choice. I was so low on health and had already lost so much, I just couldn’t take the penalty.”

Finally, Lydia-Lup stands face-to-hood with Barry, who’s letting off a crazy amount of energy from falling apart. Electricity bats at her arms but she takes the energy in like a champ.

“I just feel... nothing for you now,” she says with a nonchalant shrug.

Lydia-Lup stabs Barry through his chest with her arm, sending waves of painful energy through Barry. She smiles gleefully using Lup’s face.

Barry falls to the ground.

~*~*~*~

Taako, Magnus, and Merle are all focused on attacking Edward, assuming that the red-robe could handle Lydia on his own. Taako was the first one to notice just how wrong they were.

While Magnus is landing various hits onto Edward-Magnus, Taako turns his attention briefly to the red-robe and Lydia. What he sees is quite… concerning.

Lydia isn’t there, instead, it’s a different elf. The elf resembles Taako, a high-elf with long hair and the same skin colour and body shape as Taako. Despite the similarities, it was obviously not him. She was walking towards the red-robe and monologuing something to him that looked to be inducing a panic attack of shorts to the lich. Before Taako can blink the elf wraps energy around their hand and stabs it through the red-robe who falls to the ground in a heap of electricity and cloth.

“Son of a bitch,” Taako mumbles under his breath as he runs towards the elf, charging some magic missiles with the umbrastaff.

Before the elf can react Taako is up close and firing missiles at her. They are much more powerful than he had intended. Each missile lands and the elf is sent flying back, the form becoming broken and cracking open like an eggshell to reveal Lydia, who is unharmed by the missiles.

“Come on, Taako, I was just getting started with that form,” Lydia says, immensely disappointed.

“Playtime's over,” Taako says, raising the umbrastaff for another attack. But instead of firing a shot the umbrastaff inverts, beginning to absorb the red-robe like a vacuum cleaner.

“Shit! How do I turn this thing off?” Taako yells, trying to pull the umbrella shut.

Lydia cackles like she’s never seen anything funnier in her whole undead life.

“Looks like you didn’t think this whole thing through, darling,” Lydia says between cackles

Taako, with horror and guilt, watches as the red-robe is lost to the umbrastaff that finally closes up again.


End file.
